2015-03-28 Saudi Arabia is bombing targets in Yemen aimed at overthrowing the Houthi government. (AlJazeera) For analysis, see below.

GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHICS
Yemen is a country just to the south of Saudi Arabia with a population the size of Australia (roughly 24 million) in a land mass one-third the size of Queensland. There’s another 800,000 – 1,000,000 Yemenis living in Saudi Arabia.
Ninety-nine percent of the population are Islamic – 60%–65% of the Muslim population is Sunni and over 35%–40% is Shia.Yemen is estimated to have the second-highest gun ownership rate in the world, ranking behind only the United States, and its bazaars are well stocked with heavy weaponry.

HISTORY

The country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires in the early 20th century. The Zaydi Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established after World War I in North Yemen before the creation of Yemen Arab Republic in 1962. South Yemen remained a British protectorate until 1967 when they withdrew after nationalists groups began an armed struggle for control. South Yemen then became a Marxist state with ties to the USSR.

The two Yemeni states united to form the modern republic of Yemen in 1990 under the corrupt military dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh who controlled the country until the Arab Spring / Yemeni Revolution of 2011. He abdicated power in 2012, handing government over to his Vice-President Hadi (who has since also been evicted from the country) and managed to get full immunity from prosecution for his crimes.

The Yemeni government was overthrown by a coup in September 2014 by the Houthis, a Zaidiyyah Shi’a revolutionary party, whose leader was killed by the Saleh armed forces in an earlier struggle. On September 20, 2014, an agreement was signed in Sana’a under UN patronage essentially giving the Houthis control of the government. This affects the broader power balance in the Middle East, tilting the country from Saudi to Iranian influence. Saudi Arabia has exercised the predominant external influence in Yemen since the withdrawal of Nasser’s Egyptian expeditionary force.

SALEH & THE US

Saleh ruthlessly suppressed opposition groups, especially those with a religious or sectarian orientation (in this case, the Houthis, who are Shiite).

In 2006, he was invited to the White House to meet with Bush, who said:

I have gotten to know the President over the past six years of my presidency. I feel comfortable saying, welcome, my friend. I had the privilege of calling President Saleh after the elections of Yemen. I told him, I said it was a remarkable occurrence that his great country had a free and open election. I’ve had a chance to congratulate him and thank him in person today.

The brother of one of the people killed in the vehicle attack said “If there’s no compensation from the government, we will accept the compensation from al-Qaeda. If I am sure the Americans are the ones who killed my brother, I will join al-Qaeda and fight against America.”

The consortium is led by Total S.A. (39.62%) in cooperation with Hunt Oil Company (17.22%), Yemen Gas Company (YGC; 16.73%), SK Corp. (9.55%), Kogas (6.00%), Hyundai Corporation (5.88%), and the General Authority for Social Security & Pensions of Yemen (5.00%).

The second largest shareholder, Hunt Oil, is a privately-held company—“one of the big money Texas donors behind the Bush family political empire” who in 2007 signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August (after the Bush administration conveniently removed Saddam Hussein).

The CEO Ray L. Hunt was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Bush.

Hunt discovered oil in Yemen in 1984, and opened a refinery at Maarib in 1986. The refinery was inaugurated by then Vice-President George H. W. Bush in April 1986. In November 2005, the government of Yemen attempted to nationalize the operation of the concession, which is known as Block 18. Hunt Oil responded by filing arbitration against the Yemeni government at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.

Ray Hunt joined the Halliburton Company Board in 1998. He also serves as a member of the boards of directors of PepsiCo, Inc., King Ranch, Inc., Electronic Data Systems Corporation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Security Capital Group Incorporated. Hunt currently serves as a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.; the Board of Trustess for the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation; the Board of Directors of the Texas Research League; the executive committee of the Southwestern Medical Foundation in Dallas; and the Board of Trustees of Southern Methodist University. Hunt has served as chairman of the National Petroleum Council in Washington, D.C. (an industry advisory organization for the Secretary of Energy) and served as its chairman from June 1991 to July 1994. In 1980-81 he served as president of the Domestic Petroleum Council. He is currently a member of the board of directors of the American Petroleum Institute.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Apart from the gas and oil reserves, Yemen also has a lot of external debt which various parties want to see repaid.

See the earlier note about Saleh’s hidden wealth and immunity from prosecution. Who is going after him for the debt? No-one. He’s currently seeking refuge in Ethiopia, after a cozy visit to the US in early 2012.

SUNNI – SHI’A RIVALRY

Saudi Arabia and Yemen were both majority Sunni, however the Houthi are Shi’a, backed by Iran.

The GCC is coordinating the attacks on Yemen. Its an economic and political union of mostly repressive and brutal Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Its member states are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. All current member states are monarchies. With the exception of Kuwait, the member countries all rank at the bottom of the UN’s freedom index. These monarchies have, of course, plenty of reasons to shut down with extreme force any “Arab Spring” uprisings against brutal regimes.